As Jack felt suffocated by the stares and quiet, the butler stepped forward and stated, “Since the founding of the Space, it has been a tradition that the Summoner eats together with the Guardians as an equal.”

Hearing Nalser say that, Jack made an “Ohh.” sound and followed Nalser to where they distributed food. He took the canteen given to him by a middle aged lady.

When Jack looked up to thank her, he was startled, the lady had cat ears. Seeing Jack’s surprise, Nalser chuckled and introduced her, “This is Mei, our head chef. Her food is truly to die for.”

The middle aged lady blushed and said with a laugh, “Don’t embarrass me in front of the new Summoner like that, my food is only average.” She then turned towards Jack and said, “Don’t listen to that old fellow, he is always trying to butter me up. However, if you are hungry, drop by any time for a meal.”

Jack meekly nodded his head and took the tray filled with food. As he looked around, he saw that although no one was staring at him any more, they were all looking at him from the corner of their eyes. Jack sighed and saw an empty bench and table and headed there. When he sat down, Nalser sat down across from him and said, “If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them over the meal.”

Jack hesitated for a moment and then asked, “Who is a Summoner?” Nalser pondered for a moment and then started explaining, “As the Recruiter may have mentioned it, a Summoner is a person from a Time and Space that represents that Time and Space in Elun, a gathering of races from different Time and Space worlds.”

He took a sip of the milk that came with the food and continued, “While you are the Representative of Earth, it is simply called like that because Earth is the most advanced of the civilizations in that Time and Space.”

Jack nodded as it made somewhat sense and asked the next question, “What am I supposed to do as the Summoner, simply go to meetings day in and day out?”

Nalser shook his head and put down his fork as he said seriously, “Elun isn’t as simple as that. While you may be the Representative of Earth, you currently have very little authority.”

He then looked into Jack’s eyes and said, “Not everyone are equal here, the Council of Thirteen are the Realms with the most authority. To become one of the Thirteen, you need a lot of merit, an overwhelming strength and a resolute and cunning mind.”

He then picked up his fork again and said with a slightly sad tone, “When Elun was first founded, due to Earth’s massive contributions, Earth was a part of the Thirteen, however, due to several reasons, Earth’s strength declined over time and now we are simply a Fighter level Realm. The authority and power we have is not worth anything in the face of the Thirteen.” He lowered his fork again and added, “Currently, we are surrounded by hungry wolves that try to devour us and we are running out of means to fend them off with.”

Jack lowered his head in thought and asked, “Looking to devour us? Wasn’t the point of this entire Summoner and Elun thing to prevent the rise of an Empire? What is the Empire any ways? Is it connected to the founding of Elun?”

Nalser nodded and said, “Nearly a million years ago, a certain group of people in a certain Time and Space Realm found a way to detect and travel between different Time and Space Realms. Using their superior technology and military might, they invaded one Realm after another and subjugated them, enslaved their races and exploited their resources as they continued to advance in technology and military might.”

He then took a deep breath before continuing, “For hundreds of thousands of years, the method to detect and travel between the different Time and Space Realms was their highest guarded secret but through pure chance a member of the Uprising stumbled upon the method. From then on, they had the means to fight back by making contact with different Realms before the Empire and warning them of the danger, also they managed to persuade them to join with their cause: To tear down the Empire and found a Council that’s sole purpose is to keep another Empire from rising.” Nalser then took a few bites as he let the information sink in.

Seeing that Jack had absorbed most of the information, Nalser continued, “While the original purpose of the Council was exactly that, so much time has passed from then, the Original Thirteen have been all replaced over the time and new policies and new rules have come to play. Now, all Realms need to hand over a certain amount of resources every year to the Council and they also implemented the Ranking System. The higher ranked you are, the more benefits you have and the smaller the number of resources you need to give each year. In addition to that, the Council will give your Realm resources from the tributes every year.”

He then turned his head to the side and said with a distant glance, “The rich and powerful become richer and more powerful while the poor and weak will become poorer and weaker.” Jack stared at Nalser with a dumbfounded look and blurted out, “Please tell me that is a joke? Doesn’t that contradict the purpose of Elun?”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Nalser’s eyes flashed and he asked, “What do you mean by that?”

Jack elaborated, “From your story, Elun was founded to prevent this kind of an unbalanced state of power. That the strong get stronger by doing less.” He then thought for a moment and said, “From your story, the power model that suited their ideology should have been that the stronger ones have more responsibilities while the weaker ones are helped to build themselves up, not the other way around.”

Nalser smiled and nodded his head as he said, “It truly was like that when Elun was founded but now, times have changed, there is no threat of the Empire any more and the current leaders of the Realms do not know of the bitter war and struggle back then.” He then sighed and said, “Due to not having a common enemy or goal to fight against, Elun has reverted to the path of the Empire, the strong rule all.”

Jack fell into silent thought after hearing that. It seemed that no matter the race, if the common enemy was gone, after a few generations, the Ancestors teachings will be forgotten and the greedy nature will surface. Jack sighed deeply as his thoughts reached that far. He then looked at Nalser and asked, “What did you mean by, “There are forces out there trying to devour us”?”

Nalser looked away as he said, “Earth Realm is a Realm with a long history in Elun, so a lot of newer Realms that have joined later on are quite jealous of our Space and secrets.” Hearing this, Jack sighed even deeper and asked a bit defeated, “And the new Council allows this?”

Nalser nodded and said, “As long as they can defeat us in a Siege War, they can take over an island in our space.” He then looked out the window with a distant gaze and said, “We used to have over a dozen large islands floating in our Space, all connected to this one. However, after continuous defeats, we have lost an island after island. Then our Guardians left one after another because we couldn’t pay to keep them because all of our resource and production income was on those islands we lost.”

Hearing this, Jack let out a hollow laugh and asked, “Over how many years did this happen?” Nalser gave a wry smile and said, “Over the past three Summoners…. Before then we had a solid position amongst the Representatives in the higher brackets.”

Hearing this, Jack crossed his arms over his chest and asked with a frown, “Was it deliberate? No matter how I look at it, there is no way our Realm can decline that fast considering the foundation set by our Ancestors. When was Elun founded?”

Nalser answered with a wry smile, “It was founded 566 218 years ago, in local time.”

Hearing this, Jack frowned even further and said, “Then it should be impossible to fall this hard in a mere 200 years if the Ancestors had built a solid foundation for over 500 000 years.” He then looked at Nalser deeply in the eye and asked, “What happened?”

Nalser shook his head and said, “The decline happened over the past 50 years. The previous Summoners met their end prematurely due to one reason or another within a few decades of each other.” Jack was stunned and asked, “How can you fuck up that badly in a mere 50 years with a solid foundation that dated back to over half a million years? Were they drunkards and junkies? Did the Ancestors not leave any fail safe in case someone like this showed up and fucked everything to oblivion?” When he reached the end, he was practically shouting it in Nalser’s face.

He no longer paid any attention to his surroundings so he didn’t notice the stunned looks of everyone in the dining hall. Nalser smiled and said, “You seem a little too heated for someone that doesn’t want any part of all of this.”

Jack looked Nalser straight in the eye, “I can’t escape this responsibility in any way as you have made obvious multiple times and my father taught me: If you are going to do something, never do it half assed.”

Jack then took a breath and said, “I may not want to do this and honestly speaking, after hearing the circumstances of all this, I want even less to do with all of this, however, let me ask one simple question, what happens if I say “Not my problem” and just go do whatever the hell else?”

Nalser was stunned for a moment and after careful pondering said, “When we lose this island as well, we will have no more islands in the Space, so we lose our spot in Elun. If we lose the spot in Elun, Earth’s Time and Space Realm is no longer protected by the rules of Elun and anyone can take it over.”

Jack looked at Nalser and said, “Figures, that is usually the setting in these kinds of novels, now let me ask you, do you think Earth will be able to resist invasion if we lose our protection from Elun’s rules and laws?” Nalser thought for a moment and then shook his head but before he could say anything, Jack said, “That fucker Recruiter said that there is no one in our Time and Space as of current that could take over as the Summoner, so even if I gave up every right, there is no one else to take position.”

Everything in the dining hall was completely quiet, if someone shifted even a bit, it would heard by everyone.

Jack then said, “I may have inherited one fuck up of a mess from my predecessor but I will give my best to make sure that Earth doesn’t end up for grabs between anyone who wants it.” Hearing this, Nalser stood up and bowed deeply, “I thank you sir.”

Jack shook his head and added, “There is another reason I am doing this.” Nalser raised an eyebrow and asked, “Another reason?” Jack nodded seriously and said, “To beat the crap out of that Recruiter I need to have sufficiently high standing don’t I?” After that sentence a smile bloomed on Jack’s face that seemed filled with anger.

However, before Nalser could ask for clarification, a person hurried into the dining hall and loudly shouted, “The Firong Realm has issued a Siege War Challange to us!”